why did eridan spend so little time in the water if he hated landdwellers? even his hive was on an island

I like to imagine that Eridan would spend several hours sitting on his hive staring at land through binoculars and occasionally scribbling some notes in a journal labelled “Landdwweller Activvities”. 

And every once and awhile Gamzee would be walking around the beach, see him in the distance and wave which would surprise Eridan and he’d try to act like he wasn’t spying on the landdwellers and end up falling off his roof or something like that .